


the one with all the wilting flowers

by Apalapucian



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Muggle, F/M, Gen, Marauders, Modern Marauders (Harry Potter)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-27 00:50:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18728326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Apalapucian/pseuds/Apalapucian
Summary: Lily just stares at him for a while. "Huh. Who knew there was more to you than your stupid puns and impulsive hair-raking?"James shrugs. "Fancied this girl who was out of my league, had to upgrade myself some way."





	the one with all the wilting flowers

When they get back in the pick-up,  _three_  doors thud close in quick succession, which – it shouldn't be, that's creepy, because it's only James and Sirius who are supposed to be getting in as far as James is aware. James almost injures his neck in his haste to look behind, and sure enough, Remus is there. Of course he's just there, materializing out of fucking oblivion. That makes sense.

He's texting someone, Remus, the phone light making it look like his face is floating in the dark. James can barely see in the poor lighting, but he frowns at the bulky mass beside Remus; that is, unmistakably, his worn backpack full to bursting with his stuff.

"Moony. Hello there. What the fuck?"

"Peter can't come," is what Remus says, still typing away. "He's grounded. Apparently he snuck out last time when we went to the fair."

"Good, because I didn't invite him. As a matter of fact, I don't remember inviting anyone."

"Well, I'm here." He looks up from his phone. "Hello," he greets them tonelessly, then finishes typing whatever. The whoosh of a sent text fills the silence, then he pockets his phone. "Should we go?"

Sirius is quiet. He didn't look behind like James did. Maybe he didn't hear, maybe he knew that Remus would be here, maybe he doesn't care. He certainly can hear shit now, but he's sort of just glaring at the road ahead.

James tells Remus, "Please tell me you haven't been sleeping on some damp park bench again."

"If I'm going to sleep on some damp park bench, James, it wouldn't be at any park near here. Do you know who lives around here? No offense, Sirius."

"All offense rightly deserved and taken," says Sirius.

"Remus," says James, stern.

Without looking up from his phone, which he has again busied himself with, Remus raises his free right hand in mock pledge. "I swear, most solemnly, that I haven't been sleeping on some damp park bench again."

"Alright."

He drops his hand. "Because it's not damp this time."

" _Remus_  – "

Remus laughs. It's not the same laugh he does for things that are actually funny. "So I'm homeless again, it's fine! Congratulate me. It shouldn't be news to you lot by now."

"Congratulations," Sirius says very unhelpfully.

"Thanks, mate."

"Just live with me," James says, and he can't believe they're having this conversation right now. Like, yes, he can choose not to say that, he knows what kind of reaction it'll spur anyway, but it's important for him that he say this every chance he gets just so he can impress just how much he wants Remus to stop fucking living in the streets, even though Remus has long shunned the idea of it.

Honestly, though, universe? This, too? He should not have to deal with this right now, not tonight, not with Sirius –

"Prongs, you really wanna do this now?" asks Remus, of the same mind. "It's fine. I'm not homeless. I was checked in at a lodge nearby. I'm around because Sirius called me. I was just fucking with you."

James turns to Sirius. "Is that true?"

Sirius vaguely hums in assent. "I called him when I couldn't reach you."

It was not accusatory at all, and James did answer Sirius after two missed calls. He was in the manor study talking with his dad the first two times the phone rang in his room. When he saw the missed call notifications, he drove here as fast as he could. Still, he feels the need to apologize. So he does.

Sirius easily waves it off. "It was like 11 PM. You're a grandpa. I knew you were asleep."

James doesn't correct him.

Remus pockets his phone after another message-sent whoosh. "So. Where are we going?"

 

↟↟↟↟

 

They stop at a gas station, for starters. No one has said much on the way there, except for these two short (very pointless, if you're going to ask James) conversations:

One is when Remus says, "Peter wants to say that he just hopes James drives like a human being with sense this time."

To which Sirius replies after a scoff, "In his dreams."

James doesn't know if he meant James's dreams or Peter's, but he doesn't comment lest the jibe just escalates against his favor.

"I told him that's too much to ask for," continues Remus, even though  _no one asked_ , "seeing that James drives like a raccoon with no sense."

James just rolls his eyes (and concentrates on the road so as not to seem like a raccoon with no sense).

The second is when Sirius says, just out of the blue, "Moony, remember that girl you dated who called you Remy?"

"No. What is dating? What's a girl?"

Sirius laughs. More like exhales a quick breath than laughs, really, but that's more than James can ask for right now, given the circumstances.

"What do you two have against the Remy's of the world?" James asks them. "It's not a bad name."

"I don't have a problem with them, it's a perfectly decent name," explains Sirius. "I do have a problem, however, with Remus being a Remy in any way, in, like, any universe he's in."

Remus leans forward and squeezes himself as much as he can between the front seats. "Why?" he asks, in the way he asks a question he already knows the answer to but wants to hear it anyway. "Am I not a Remy? Do I not emit even the slightest Remy impression?"

Sirius answers, "Initially? Very. After? Not at all." And James, who's not even just twenty percent sure what in the hell these two are talking about exactly, finds himself wholeheartedly agreeing.

"Some of the people you dated called you Jamie," says Remus, poking James's shoulder.

"Well, that's different," says Sirius, before James can confirm or deny.

"How's that different?" demands James, feeling unreasonably defensive.

"Because you  _are_ a Jamie sometimes."

"True," agrees Remus.

"I am not." James slows down, his focus tainted. "When am I a Jamie?"

"You're being sort of one right now."

Sirius laughs again. More solidly this time. "Isn't he," he mutters.

James lets it go. He puts out instead, "Wasn't there that hot guitarist who called you Siri, too?"

"That never happened. I mean, yes, he called me Siri, but the date never pushed through. May have given some generic excuse to cancel." He pauses to grin at James. "I think I told him you died. I think that was him."

"Thanks," says James. "Good to know my death falls under 'generic excuse' these days."

"Was that after he called you Siri or did you let that drag for a bit?" asks Remus, amused.

"I didn't let it drag for two more seconds after that."

"Good," Remus says, leaning back in his seat, "because you're not a Siri at all."

 

↟↟↟↟

 

"Is that Evans?" Sirius asks, and James laughs, doesn't look, because that's ridiculous.

They are parked in front of the first 7eleven they came across, on the other side of the road. Remus lost a rather intense rock-paper-scissors match and is out there buying stuff. James and Sirius have been trying to watch him from the pick-up, squinting through the markings on the glass windows, following him snake through the aisles. James gave up when Remus went to the freezers way inside the shop. He looked out his own window instead, started unconsciously watching the rusty streetlight flicker on and off nearby.

And then apparently now Lily Evans is around.

There's no way. Sirius just got blasted off his family tree, Remus is homeless, and now Lily Evans is around to witness him try to figure shit out. There's just no way.

But when he looks – he has to lean forward a bit to see because now Sirius has rolled his window down and is trying to stick his entire upper body out of it – it definitely is Lily. It's too far to see the green in her eyes (a very distinctive Evans thing), but the red hair? The way it curves around her face and falls? The way she's slouched on one of the tables (on the  _table_ , and not on any of the chairs, like a normal person) outside the convenience store? Definitely her.

"Oi! Evans!" Sirius is yelling now.

James firmly pins himself against his seat and has to stop himself from cursing.

So what if she's here. So fucking what. Get a grip.

He doesn't hear whatever Lily says back, maybe she says nothing. Doesn't see what she does. He does hear when Remus is back by the pick-up though, and – yeah. She's with him now. Crossed the street and all. It's fine.

She leans against Sirius's door as Remus hauls the groceries, then himself, in the back seat. James hears Lily ask, presumably to Sirius, "What happened to you?"

Remus says, "I punched him."

Sirius says, with a suggestive grin that James can't see but can hear, very clearly, "Prongs says hello." Then he leans back to let Lily have a proper look inside the truck.

James says, "I'm about to punch him a second time."

"Hey, Potter."

"Evans." James does a half-hearted wave in greeting when their eyes meet. Sirius snorts, and James wants to shoo them away, all of them, push them off the pick-up, and drive all the way to Atlantis.

"What are you doing out here alone?" James asks Lily.

"I was gonna go to Mary's, but then my phone died and I don't have spare change for commute," she says. "I'm here just waiting for her to maybe come buy a midnight snack or something."

"Does she usually?" asks Remus. "Does she live nearby?"

"No. And, no, she's not even in town. They flew to Cairo last week after Benjy's wedding." She chuckles. "I'm just making excuses."

"Why are you really here?" asks Sirius. "It's late. You don't even have a jacket."

"Ah, I'm fine. It never gets too cold these days, and I haven't been out long, really. I, um. I had a shitty night. I don't wanna go home, and my phone  _is_ dead, that bit was true. I'm sort of just contemplating life out here. It's all good."

"Shittier than this?" asks Sirius, pointing at the blue-purple-yellow patches on his face, the colors getting more saturated the more distance James tries to put between him and his blasted family home.

"No, I guess not. You look terrible. Where are you going?"

"We're running away," says Remus, patting his bursting backpack and the brown paper bags beside him.

"Yeah?"

"Yep. Fuck this town. Wanna come?"

"It's not a road trip," says James.

"Your driver seems opposed," Lily tells the others, but she's looking right at James.

"It's two against one," says Sirius lightly. "If Peter was here, it'd even be more votes against him. Get in."

James gets off before anyone can move. "You drive," he tells – well, both of them, all of them, whoever, doesn't really matter – and then walks around and climbs up on the back of the pick-up.

It smells like… god, it smells like a funeral here, and it takes him a second to realize that it's because of the flowers – peonies and lilies and roses of varying shades of yellow, just crushed and mangled remnants now – from last week when the pick-up was used to fetch the flower arrangements from the Evanses' flower shop. For Benjy's wedding.

A funeral. His brain chose funeral. Great.

He leans against the back window, spreads his legs before him, feels Remus – or maybe Lily? – knock on the glass from the other side to get his attention. He pretends not to notice.

He's probably being dramatic. Fine, he  _is_ being dramatic. He knows that. And he does feel bad, sort of. Sirius doesn't need him like this right now. Remus doesn't either. But he can't be in a closed space with Lily Evans. It's just too much, too soon. You can't just bare your soul the way he did, get a big fat nothing, and then – then this, whatever this is. Just talk like nothing happened. Maybe, like, when school resumes, James can try. But this summer is for him and for getting over Lily Evans and for figuring out how to help his friends. That much has been decided for already. Lily has no business appearing to him unannounced like this. The universe has no business subjecting him to any of this.

The pick-up revs and moves after a bit, and James exhales the breath he didn't know he was holding. He lets his head thud back, folds up a leg and starts picking at the rips in his jeans.

 _I think I might have fallen in love with you_ , he said.  _I'm sorry_. Well, he  _wrote_ , because telling her straight-up was something he couldn't bring himself to do. Maybe he should have just told her in person, come to think of it. That way he would have gotten a clear answer right away.

Then again isn't all this sufficiently clear enough as an answer?

 _This is my friend_ ,  _James_ , she said, the next time she saw him. Last week, at Benjy's wedding.  _From school. We're in the same house._

_Did you, um. Did you get my letter?_

_Yeah._

_Oh. Are you… What do you – ?_

_I – have to go. My sister needs me. The shop has another set of orders for today. Don't you need to get these to Benjy?_

_Right. Yeah. Okay._

_I'll see you in school?_

_Sure. Take care._

_You, too._

 

↟↟↟↟

 

James thinks he might have dozed a bit because he didn't feel the pick-up stop, but the hum of the engine is definitely suddenly gone. He opens his eyes to the commotion of someone unlocking the tailgate, then climbing up onto the funeral-smelling cargo bed with him.

Next thing he knows Lily Evans is right beside him, legs crossed, their shoulders touching. She smells – woodsy. Which is a very pretentious thing to say, and is probably very inaccurate and only brought about by the thickets of trees on the side of the road. Would probably not even sound like a compliment if he said it aloud.  _It's like standing in the forest, being this near you_. God. What does that even mean?

It's nice, though. How she smells. The crushed flowers are sickeningly sweet, and the light, crisp scent coming from her is such a refreshing contrast to that. It reminds him of his family lake house deep in the woods.

He's not going to tell her that though. He's not going to tell her any more shit if he can help it.

She smiles up at him. "Hello."

"Hi." James is fully awake now, but also maybe not, because it feels like dying a little.

 

↟↟↟↟

 

"Why are you here?" he asks her after sometime. The pick-up has already traversed enough distance for him to lose some of his mind.

She seems startled by the sudden question. "I like it here. Every time I see you around on this thing I always want to get a ride, but out here."

"Nimbus."

"What?"

"This thing. Her name's Nimbus."

"Oh. Sorry. Nimbus. I've been here just a few times, but I love it. Love her."

"Why do you like it here?"

"It's… hm. Isn't it romantic?"

"It is?"

"Yeah." She looks up. They're farther north now, almost to the border. The highway is narrower; it's probably not even an official highway in some of the existing maps anymore. Nothing here but fields, thickets, the creepy old town cemetery just a few more blocks away. The ancient acacia trees from the opposite sides of the road meet overhead, creating a lattice of branches through which the moonlight sifts through. She says, "In movies, the part where someone says, 'this feels infinite – '"

"Like in  _Perks_?"

"Well, yeah, but also just like generally. A montage of a road trip, the happy part right where everything falls to shit, or the end. It's not always on the cargo bed of a pick-up, but it feels like that. Being here. The wind, everything around you – it's romantic. Even if you're alone, it feels like something… I don't know. Momentous. Somehow."

James stays silent a bit too long.

"Pretentious, isn't it?" She's smiling, but her gaze has a slight glint to it.

"No. Has someone told you that? That it's pretentious?"

"Most people. I've stopped telling them actually."

"You told me just now."

"You're right. Maybe you're not 'most people' then."

"I think I am, though. I try not to be, but I'm most people usually. I'm… a Jamie."

She chuckles. "You're a what?"

"A Jamie. Some people I dated before called me Jamie, and the boys think I'm a Jamie sometimes. Whatever that means. I don't really know what it means."

"I think I know what they mean."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Remus and Sirius, right? Did they say the bit where they're never Remy and Siri, too?"

"Yeah. I can't believe that makes sense to you."

"I can't believe it, too. I used to think you're just these huge nonsensical idiots. The four of you."

"Don't you anymore? We kinda are."

"To be honest, I still do sometimes. It's way less often now though."

James makes a face at her, which she laughs at.

"I don't think it's bad, being a Jamie," she says. "There's nothing wrong with it."

"And I don't think it's pretentious, what you said," James tells her, not wanting to forget. "It's why my mom bought it. This truck. She thought it was romantic. She said being on the back of a moving pick-up felt like having her shit together. Or  _not_ having it together and being assured that that's also fine. Whatever you're feeling, she said, whatever you're feeling, when you're here, there's a background music for it, and the music is good."

"She – really? She said all that?"

"It does sound like something I'd bullshit to get in someone's pants, doesn't it?"

"A bit."

"She really said it though. I don't think I could be that creative if I tried."

"Alright. I believe you."

"'Course, my dad hated it.  _He_  thought it was pretentious. But I think he was just bummed that he had to drive while she was out here."

"Wish I'd met her."

"Me too."

Lily frowns. "You haven't – ?"

"You," he clears up. "Wish you'd met her, too."

 

↟↟↟↟

 

They make a right turn, James catches sight of a street marker just a whisper away from complete dilapidation, and he thinks he might have an idea where they're heading to. He wonders who's driving. If they're talking inside, Remus and Sirius, and what they're talking about, if they are. Is it James? James  _and_ Lily? The song currently playing? James can feel the bass of it through the thick glass, but it's too faint for him to guess the song. He wonders if they're talking about the bruise around Sirius's eye, the one on his jaw. If Sirius has asked about Remus's backpack, berated him for being stubborn about James's offer. If Remus has told him to shut up and mind his own business, and if Sirius has cheekily answered back that Remus so readily gave up an already-paid night's worth stay at a lodge after just one call.

"Do you know where we're going?" asks Lily. They've been quiet for a while. It wasn't awkward, surprisingly. James just feels like – like there's something he has to do, the entire time, but he has forgotten what. Like there's an inexplicable urgency making the tips of his fingertips tingle.

"Running away," says James.

"No, really."

James looks around. He's surer now. "The Cove, I think."

"Ah."

The truck makes another turn, and James catches the unmistakable scent of the sea.

 

↟↟↟↟

 

The tires dig into the rocky shore with a satisfying crunch as it slows. The engine sputters to a stop, and the sound of tame waves crashing and ebbing fill the air more clearly. Crickets. The occasional rustle of trees, a gentle hello from the mountains bordering the other side of the road.

James feels considerably better than when he saw the two calls he missed from Sirius a while ago.

Remus and Sirius get off. Sirius drove, James concludes, because the driver side door slams close way more angrily than the other one. James doesn't move. Lily doesn't either.

Remus knocks on the side of the pick-up by way of saying they're going down to the beach with or without them. Lily tells him, "We'll be along."

"Don't drown, Padfoot!" James calls out to Sirius, who's probably already far enough, already at the sandy part of the shore, that James has to yell. He doesn't get an answer.

Remus retrieves their purchases from the backseat and then jogs to catch up to Sirius.

James doesn't ask Lily what they're still doing on the cargo bed. He says, "We're on the wrong side. We've got the mountain view."

"I like the mountains."

Quiet.

More quiet.

A really long stretch of quiet – or maybe not, maybe it's only been a minute and James is just waiting for something.

"I'm sorry for not writing you back," says Lily, and even in that moment James still isn't sure if he's been dreading or anticipating this more. Either way, his heart's going crazy, it's ridiculous. "And for not saying anything when we met last week."

"Can I ask why?"

"I… freaked out? I think."

"And now?"

"Still freaking out."

 _Makes two of us_. "But you're talking to me now."

"I am, yeah. I guess I just… This took a bit of time, and I'm sorry. I still don't know what… I just want you to know, now, at least, that I do like you, too."

James bites his lip. Doesn't let that get to him. "I know you do. You don't hang out with people you don't like."

"You know what I mean."

"I don't. I don't like slivers of hope when it comes to you."

"Why?" She frowns. "Is that a thing with certain people or just me?"

"Just you, probably."

Her chuckle is short-lived, nervous. "Why then?"

"They're… impossible to maintain."

She considers this. But then: "Sorry. I don't get it."

"Hm. For one, they're never just slivers, they're either these super giant false hopes or, the few times I'm strong and sensible enough not to let them be anything, they're nonexistent. I prefer them to be nonexistent. So I don't know what you mean when you say you like me. Capiche?"

She considers that, too. "I… No." She laughs. "Sorry, I don't get it. It's okay, never mind. It's okay if I don't get it."

James takes a deep breath, shifts to face her. "Just – just be straight with me, yeah? I'm not mad at you. Really. And I'm not going to be either. I don't have a right to be."

"I didn't respond to you. That's something to be upset about, and I'm sorry about it."

"Well, yeah, okay, I  _am_  upset about it. I do feel… not okay, about that. You not saying anything. But that's all on me. That's not… It's not your responsibility to make that okay."

Her baffled frown deepens. "But it kinda is? If not as someone you fancy, then as your friend, it is. I don't want you to feel like shit because of me. I don't want  _anyone_ to feel like shit because of me."

James purses his lips, eyebrows furrowing in frustration. "You're too nice and smart, Evans. I don't even know what to say anymore. Can you not be this nice and smart when I'm trying to be decent?"

"I think I'm nice and smart just the right amount and in appropriate times, thanks. I just don't think I understand you."

James leans back again, stares at the sky in an attempt to clear his head, find the right words. Or just words. "I'm not mad at you," he says again. That's one sure thing he needs her to know. "I told you that I… what I felt about you, and I'm not… I'm not imposing, you know, that you feel the same way, or that you tell me what I want to hear. I don't want you to feel sorry for me either. I'm not mad and I'm not going to be mad because I  _can't_ be mad for however you react to that letter."

"I don't feel sorry for you, and I'll never lie just to appease your feelings. If that's anything."

He lets his head loll to the side so he can smile at her. "Thanks. That's good to know."

"Okay, so now that you know that, tell me what you want."

James takes his time looking at her and deciding whether or not to answer that. It's Lily staring right back at him steadfastly that makes him go for it. "I just want to know what… I should do," he begins. "I want to know what I'm supposed to act on. If you like me, if you don't like me, or even if you're not sure, or, hell, even if you don't care, Lily. I just want an answer of some kind, so I can breathe. Figure out what to do next. But I didn't want to outright ask you, because I already did last week, and I felt like asking again would be pressuring you or would seem like I'm imposing, which, like I said, I didn't want to do. Figured I'd just avoid you until you came to me yourself or I got over you or whichever happens first. Till then I can't – I just don't know what to do around you. What to think. What to say, not to say – "

"That's a lot of things you just said."

"I know, I'm sorry."

"That's not – I just meant, that's a lot of things you said anyway, so avoiding me didn't make much difference."

James sighs. "Yeah, I know. You drive me crazy. I hate it."

She has the decency not to laugh in his face. Her hand moves to hover over his, hesitates, then makes do with lightly tracing his knuckles with her index finger. "I like you the same way you like me. Is that clear enough?"

James swallows. Nods. It's too  _silent_ for such a moment that's so obviously colossal, but he concentrates on the waves, the trees, the bed of crushed, wilting flowers. Of the moon and the lack of stars and this whole night _._ The wholeass forest sitting right next to him. It's okay. This is okay. He flips his hand so that it's palm up, breath hitching when Lily drops her hand fully to lace her fingers with his.

"I just got scared," she says, staring at their hands.

"Of what?"

"Of what it means. For me. For us."

"It means we like each other a certain way, that's all."

"Yeah, but what does that… what are we supposed to do about that?"

James lets out a nervous chuckle. "Well, normally, people date? They become… partners? Boyfriend and girlfriend, but I'm not too picky on labels.  _You've_ dated. You've liked people who liked you back. Doesn't it just mean we do the same thing?"

"I  _have_ dated, yes, but this… I've only ever liked one other person the same way I like you now."

"Really?"

"Yeah. It didn't end well."

"They didn't like you back? That's incredibly moronic."

"They did. He did. He was just… a horrible person, basically. Anyway, this isn't about him."

James thinks he knows who it is, but doesn't press. "Do you think I'm a horrible person?"

"No. An idiot, sometimes."

"So I've heard."

"Yeah, but not a horrible person."

"Then it's different."

"I don't want to get hurt." She said it in a rush of words, like they've been sitting on her tongue and when one slipped they all just tumbled out in a knot. "Or to  _cause_ hurt. The latter's more likely, really."

"A bit unimaginable, if you ask me."

"What is?"

"You hurting people."

"Didn't I hurt you? When I didn't write you back? When I didn't say anything? Right now, when I still can't give you a proper yes?"

James thinks about it. "It's not you. I told you. It's… a natural pain? It comes with it."

"You're just too into me," she insists. "Don't you think you're just too into me?"

"Oh, I definitely think that, Evans. But – like, if I hadn't told you how I felt, then it would still have upset me. And that'd have been all me, wouldn't it? Since you don't know. It's like that. Telling you and hurting is the same pain as  _not_ telling you and hurting. They're both not on you."

Lily just stares at him for a while. "Huh. Who knew there was more to you than your stupid puns and impulsive hair-raking?"

James shrugs. "Fancied this girl who was out of my league, had to upgrade myself some way."

Lily smiles at him. "Thanks, you dork."

 

↟↟↟↟

 

They end up having a bonfire in the northern part of the cove, the area where the sand's always cold regardless of season and time and tide, where outcrops rise from the shore like sentinels.

Right now, it's only James and Remus around the fire. Lily and Sirius are right where the edge of the sea lines the coast, barefoot and allowing the waves to reach them, jeans rolled up and hair brushed off their faces from the breeze. They're talking, although it's too far for James to hear or see their expressions.

James is content to just watch them. Both Lily and Sirius don't like hearing it, but James and the rest think they're, like, the loudly immaculate side of their friend group. And it's not just because they're straight-up drop-dead gorgeous, so to speak, it's just there's something about them – besides their faces, that is, something about the way they stand? The way they walk? The way they regard people? – that warrants a double-take. A triple-take, honestly. Remus and Peter prefer to drown in a crowd – although for different reasons – so they've mastered the art of it. James doesn't, but he so easily can if he needs to. Lily and Sirius can't  _not_ stand out in a crowd as themselves even if they try. They're just – they're loud. Even when quiet and in a corner, they can command a room's attention just by being there, looking just like the way they do. It's fascinating.

"You worked it all out then?" Remus interrupts his thoughts. "You and Lily?"

James smiles like the stupid lovesick idiot he is. "You can say that."

"Are you together now then?"

"Hm. You can also say that. We're… going to take it slow?"

Remus rolls his eyes, but James's smile is mirrored on his face. "You're both incapable of 'slow', so good luck with that."

They share a stretch of good-natured silence, and then, after some contemplation, James says, "Sirius is going to live in the flat with me from now on. He's gonna help me run the cafe."

"Yeah, I figured that'd be the set up. I have no house to offer except my family home, and that's already crowded and also eight hours away, as you know. 'Course, Peter's mom wouldn't be able to afford him more than a night, and Lily's sister wouldn't be able to afford him farther than their porch."

"Yep. And I have a flat to myself and no moms or sisters who'll disapprove."

"Golden boy."

"I'm offering it to you, too. There's plenty of space."

"James – "

"Listen, so what if we paid for your tuition last semester? We already agreed that that's a loan. So that's not even… There's no quota, Moony. You haven't reached some sort of limit."

Remus sighs. "It's not that."

"Then what is it?"

Remus takes his time drawing something on the sand with some stick he found. "I just don't like feeling like a failure all the damn time."

"How does staying with me make you feel like that?" James asks, really softly, not wanting to sound like he thinks it's ridiculous. It's the first time Remus gave him an actual answer.

"When I left my family to come study here, I thought I had everything worked out. I saved up money, I was going to work for more, pay for my own shit, graduate, go back there successful. But then – well, you know. Now I'm practically killing myself trying to keep my scholarship and I'm not earning enough to stay in one place for two weeks and it's just… If I live with you, it'll feel like giving up and acknowledging that I've failed."

"Can I be frank with you?"

He raises an eyebrow, but also points at James with his stick.

James takes that as his green light. "Sleeping on park benches makes you feel like you've won?"

Remus blinks at him, then laughs. "No. But it makes me self-aware of the struggle, so it makes me feel like I'm still out there fighting. War's not lost. Something like that."

"Staying with me doesn't mean it's lost. It's strategy. It's taking some ammunition lying around and using it to win."

"Do you think I'm being ungrateful?"

"No. But maybe that you're being stupid, a little."

Remus keeps drawing. After a while, he says, "I guess if Sirius is staying…"

James doesn't dare say a word, afraid he'll say the wrong thing and squander this development.

Remus takes a deep breath, then, resolutely: "I'll work in the cafe, too. As payment. For the lodging, I mean. And it's not permanent, I'll still try to work other jobs so I can try and look for another place.  _And_  I'll still pay the tuition someday."

"Yeah, sure." James tried to go for nonchalant, but he's not sure it worked. He hasn't been the best in keeping his heart off his damn sleeve, after all. "I'd like a caramel latte on my bedside table every morning and I'd like it with different art every day."

"I'd like you not to be a dick and I'd like you to start trying right this moment."

James laughs. "Love you, Moony. I'm really glad."

Remus simply rolls his eyes again, but James sees his evident attempt to hold back a smile even bigger than the one from earlier.

 

↟↟↟↟

 

Sirius is noticeably more chipper after his talk with Lily.

James doesn't ask either of them how exactly that conversation went – it's something, another thing, that Sirius and Lily share, conversations about their families. James would take a bullet for the both of them, no question, but their family problems are something he'll never fully understand and therefore will never fully meddle in, having grown up in a family so unlike theirs. It took a bit of time to accept that, to be honest, and he's embarrassed about some things he's said and done in the past on the matter, but he's learned not to make ignorant, sheltered comments about things like that now.  _You can be really tone-deaf about some things, did you know that,_ Lily once told him. And from Remus, too:  _James, we all know you mean well, it's just sometimes you need to have grown up in very particular circumstances to be able to really know what to do or say to help, you know?_

"Wanna go to Chuckskates?" asks Sirius, when they've eaten everything they got at 7eleven. The fire still crackles, but lower now, and the vicinity has run out of firewood.

"Milkshakes, yes," says Remus, getting up and dusting himself off.

"I actually have to go home now," says Lily, her head lifting off James's shoulder. "It's my turn to open the shop. Petunia'll have my head."

"Won't the milkshakes be worth it?" asks Sirius.

Lily snaps a small protruding stem from the stick she stole from Remus, then throws it at Sirius's direction.

 

↟↟↟↟

 

The ride home is uneventful. James drives again, Lily's in front with him, and Remus and Sirius have seemingly fallen asleep in the back. Sirius is hugging Remus's bulging backpack, and Remus's head has at some point fallen on Sirius's shoulder.

Lily hums along with the song softly playing on the stereo, and James keeps the window open even long after the sea has stopped chasing them home.

 

↟↟↟↟

 

Lily kisses him on the cheek before she leaves. "I'll kiss you properly later. Wanna take my time."

James's heart so disrespectfully lodges itself in his throat. "'Kay."

"Gross," Sirius mutters. His eyes are closed when James and Lily turn to look.

"Get used to it," says Lily, laughing.

James laughs, too.  _Get used to it, she says._ He doesn't think that's possible, even for him.

 

↟↟↟↟

 

Remus makes them all coffee in the flat once they arrive, but two of the three cups are ultimately left untouched on James's bedside table, as both Remus and Sirius flat-out fall asleep once they make contact with James's bed.

James watches and tuts as Sirius accidentally elbows Remus's face as he rolls to his side.

"Idiots," he murmurs, then goes out to get ointment for Sirius's bruises.

 

↟↟↟↟

 

He spends the early morning by the second-floor window of the flat, watching the modest piece of sunrise at the end of their street, to the smell of coffee and dew-damp pavements and the sound of Sirius and Remus having a snoring contest in his room. He stays there as the street stirs awake, waves good-morning at the old woman opening her street food stall across from the building, texts Peter to assure him that none of his friends died at the hands of a raccoon without sense.

He then also starts typing up a consciously boyfriendly  _good morning_ message to Lily, but then he catches sight of the vase on the window sill. Spare flowers from the wedding; a small bouquet of wild yellow roses and aster, sad and droopy, already brown in places.

He smiles.

He reckons a visit to the flower shop is rightly in order.

 

**Author's Note:**

>  **AN:** hello! this one featured most apalapucian jily au basic components: yellow roses, peter missing for some reason, chuckskates, references to previous fic plots, sirius x lily being my fav bros, and pointless conversations set in places that are usually found in your typical hipster aesthetic instagram feed. thank you to the always super wonderful lindsey, morgan, and laura for always indulging my undeserving ass. i hope this fic read like something written to bts's mikrokosmos on a loop, because it was. time lapse is being worked on, and so are all my other wips, thanks so so much for being patient with me and still being here. xx


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